Isolated and in crisis, Venezuela hosts Non-Aligned summit

Left increasingly isolated by a crushing political and economic crisis, Venezuela will seek the support of old friends when it hosts a summit of the Non-Aligned Movement this weekend. Leaders from the 120-nation group, which was founded more than 50 years ago amid the Cold War, will gather Saturday and Sunday on the Caribbean island of Margarita, where Venezuela will take over the movement’s rotating presidency from Iran. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro will be hoping to show he still has plenty of allies despite the catastrophic situation he faces at home: a brutal recession that has unleashed shortages of food and medicine, coupled with mounting pressure from the center-right opposition for a referendum on removing him from power.